One Meter of Democracy (2010) challenged the endurance of viewers, as well as the courage of the artist. In a quasi-democratic process, He Yunchang invited approximately 20 friends to vote in a secret ballot on whether he should have a surgeon cut a one metre incision the length of his body, from collar bone to knee, without anaesthesia. The vote was carried by a narrow majority, with several abstaining. The performance was documented in video and photographs that reveal the emotional cost of witnessing this gruelling event. This work, sometimes also known as ‘Asking the Tiger for its Skin’ was also staged on a symbolic date: 10 October 2010 was the 99th anniversary of the Wuchang uprising and the Xinhai Revolution which led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. The final image shows the group with sombre, shocked faces.
Surgeon
7.5It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.
0.0The interactive roadmovie follows the trail of a convicted war criminal with ties to Switzerland. On a journey through contemporary Rwanda, the viewer decides how deeply he wants to immerse himself in the story.
0.0A hybrid feature film that investigates contemporaneity through the body and its countless possibilities of expression and meanings. The film puts the body and the idea of the body in evidence, through metalanguage, articulation and confrontation of documentary, fictional and performative languages. The film follows the trajectory of the main character who uses her own body to formulate universes and investigate the meanings that are drawn in it. In a kind of subjective diary written on her skin, she records sensations and reflections, building relationships with thinkers, performances and archival materials, which lead her to other bodies and other stories.
0.0Dusking is a project by the artist Lucy Wright—a newly invented tradition, conceived as the counterpart to the morris dancing that takes place on 1 May marking the arrival of summer. Taking place instead on 31 October, it invites participants—who join in remotely around the world—to ‘dance the sun down’ and honour the gifts of rest, reflection and replenishment associated with the darker months of the year. 'Mirie it is' is Lucy’s own contribution to this continuing tradition, a 3-part performance embodying each of the three stages of scientific twilight—civil, when the sun dips between 0 and 6 degrees below the horizon; nautical (when it’s below 12 degrees – and most stars can be seen with the naked eye) and astronomical, when just a little light is still left in the sky.
0.0The Unassuming and unlikely Steve Birkinshaw is one of the great fell runners. In this Lakeland tale of epic proportions, family man Steve turns to the people's champion as an inspirational figure through this extraordinary challenge. Have your mind and arteries blown as Steve attempts to break the legendary Joss Naylor's 27 year old record by linking up all 214 Lakeland Wainwright summits in under seven days. A level of suffering breaching into the super human. Featuring stunning cinematography by multi-award winner Alastair Lee, This wholesome, touching and personal account will not fail to leave you uplifted and believing anything is possible. We share every high and low as Steve questions his motives and battles on through 20 hour days with little or no sleep, blister hell, dehydration, searing heat and tendonitis are just some of the obstacles between Steve and a place in fell running history. Essentialy this is not a story about fell running but of the relentless human spirit.
0.0A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore of his native Jamaica to dramatize his migration to New York in the 60's.
7.6Filmmaker S.R. Bindler profiles Texas contestants trying to win a truck by keeping one hand on it longer than everyone else.
6.9Join filmmaking duo Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob as their cameras follow Franken to book signings, campaign rallies and the launch of Air America Radio, documenting his transformation from irreverent funnyman to political pundit.
0.0A young drag queen from Andalusia exposes the difficulties of adding aspects of her homeland culture to her artistic expression.
0.0In 2003, Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh became the first World Champion of Chessboxing. This brain-busting combination of alternating rounds of chess and boxing was in fact an art performance calling for more balance in a world of extremes, and the audience reaction was so electric that it inspired Rubingh to push it as a real sport. Rubingh’s methodical ability to achieve balance in the ring is put to the test outside of it when impulsive British TV Producer Tim Woolgar takes up the sport and his opposing vision for success creates a rift between them, endangering chessboxing’s future.
0.0A documentary featuring 30 Argentinian women aged between 4 and 80, sharing their stories of resilience, strength, and unique perspectives on womanhood through performance art.
6.6"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."
6.4As part of a six-month investigation, The Times synchronized and mapped thousands of videos and police audio of the U.S. Capitol riot to provide the most complete picture to date of what happened - and why.
5.0An unprecedented look into the psyche of Karel Sabbe in his attempt to finish the legendary Barkley Marathons. As the first documentary focusing on a finisher, it unveils Sabbe's mental fortitude and physical resilience in tackling the brutal course. Through intimate interviews and captivating footage, viewers gain invaluable insights into the mindset required to endure the grueling challenges of the Barkley.
0.0In the first 58 minute Performance, Relation in Space, which took place in July 1976 at the Biennale in Venice, Abramovic/Ulay, both naked, walk towards each other from opposite ends of a room, touching as they pass each other, and then they repeat the movement while their bodies collide and one of them (Marina) falls over under the impact, until they are both exhausted. A statically mounted video camera simultaneously filmed the touching of the bodies in the middle of the room.
0.0My Trip to Miami follows a well-meaning, misguided, tourist as he tries to self-actualize via Trip Advisors algorithmic script. My Trip to Miami is a documentation of a fantasy, a failure in image-based expectations.
6.9Documentary on the Shackleton Antartic expedition. A retelling of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated expedition to Antarctica in and the crew of his vessel 'The Endurance', which was trapped in the ice floes and frigid open ocean of the Antarctic in 1914. Shackleton decided, with many of his crew injured and weak from exposure and starvation, to take a team of his fittest men and attempt to find help. Setting out in appalling conditions with hopelessly inadequate equipment, they endured all weather and terrain and finally reached safety. Persuading a local team of his confidence that the abandoned team would still be alive, he set out again to find them. After almost 2 years trapped on the ice, all members of the crew were finally rescued.
6.5Filmed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Cut Piece documents one of Yoko Ono’s most powerful conceptual pieces. Performed by the artist herself, Ono sits motionless on the stage after inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing in a denouement of the reciprocity between victim and assailant.
0.0A short film structured as a triptych that aims to personify the city through its buildings and streets, to annihilate it. A political short film about every cities.
0.0A witch appears in the south of the city, recites a poem, performs a spell and vomits the world.
